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Mickle solace would they make him,
And at midnight often wake him,
And convey him from his roome
To a fielde of yellow broome,
Or into the meadowes where
Mints perfume the gentle aire,

And where Flora spreads her treasure,
There they would beginn their measure.
If it chanc'd night's sable shrowds
Muffled Cynthia up in clowds,

Safely home they then would see him,

And from brakes and quagmires free him.
There are few such swaines as he

Now a days for harmonie."*

[From Hunter's “ New Illustrations of Shakespeare.” †]

A Midsummer-Night's Dream! At the sight of such a title we naturally ask-Who is the dreamer? The poet, any of the characters of the drama, or the spectators? The answer seems to be that there is much in this beautiful sport of imagination which was fit only to be regarded as a dream by the persons whom the fairies illuded; and that, as a whole, it comes before the spectators under the notion of a dream.

"If we shadows have offended,

Think but this (and all is mended)
That you have but slumber'd here,
While these visions did appear;
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend."

Shakespeare was then but a young poet, rising into notice; and it was a bold and hazardous undertaking to bring together classical story and the fairy mythology, made still more hazardous by the introduction of the rude attempts in *See Shepherd's Pipe, Eglogue I.

† New Illustrations of the Life, Studies, and Writings of Shakespeare, by Joseph Hunter (London, 1845), vol. i. p. 282.

the dramatic art of the hard-handed men of Athens. By calling it a dream he obviated the objection to its incongruities, since it is of the nature of a dream that things heterogeneous are brought together in fantastical confusion. Yet to a person who by repeated perusals has become familiar with this play, it will not appear so incongruous a composition that it requires such an apology as we find in the epilogue and title. It cannot, however, have been popular, any more than Comus is popular, when brought upon the stage. Its great and surpassing beauties would be in themselves a hindrance to its obtaining a vulgar popularity.

There is no apparent reason why it should be called a dream of Midsummer-night in particular. Midsummer-night was of old in England a time of bonfires and rejoicings, and, in London, of processions and pageantries. But there is no allusion to anything of this kind in the play. Midsummernight cannot be the time of the action, which is very distinctly fixed to May morning and a few days before. May morning, even more than Midsummer-night, was a time of delight in those times which, when looked back upon from these days of incessant toil, seem to have been gay, innocent, and paradisaical. See in what sweet language, and in what a religious spirit, the old topographer of London, Stowe, speaks of the universal custom of the people of the city on May-day morning, "to walk into the sweet meadows and green woods, there to rejoice their spirits with the beauty and savour of sweet flowers, and with the harmony of birds praising God in their kinds." We have abundant materials for a distinct and complete account of the May-day sports in the happy times of old England; but they would be misplaced in illustration of this play; for, though Shakespeare has made the time of his story the time when people went forth "to do observance to the morn of May," and has laid the scene of the principal event in one of those half-sylvan, half-pastoral spots which we may conceive to have been the

most favourite haunts of the Mayers, he does not introduce any of the May-day sports, or show us anything of the Mayday customs of the time.

[From Schlegel's "Lectures on Dramatic Literature." *]

The fairy world here described resembles those elegant pieces of arabesque, where little genii with butterfly wings rise, half-embodied, above the flower-cups. Twilight, moonshine, dew, and spring perfumes are the elements of these tender spirits; they assist Nature in embroidering her carpet with green leaves, many-coloured flowers, and glittering insects; in the human world they do but make sport childishly and waywardly, with their beneficent or noxious influences. Their most violent rage dissolves in good-natured raillery; their passions, stripped of all earthly matter, are merely an ideal dream. To correspond with this, the loves of mortals are painted as a poetical enchantment, which, by a contrary enchantment, may be immediately suspended and then renewed again. The different parts of the plot-the wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta, Oberon and Titania's quarrel, the flight of the two pair of lovers, and the theatrical manœuvres of the mechanics—are so lightly and happily interwoven that they seem necessary to each other for the formation of a whole. Oberon is desirous of relieving the lovers from their perplexities, but greatly adds to them through the mistakes of his minister, till he at last comes really to the aid of their fruitless amorous pain, their inconstancy and jealousy, and restores fidelity to its own rights. The extremes of fanciful and vulgar are united, when the enchanted Titania awakes and falls in love with a coarse mechanic with an ass's head, who represents, or rather disfigures, the part of a tragical lover. The droll wonder of Bottom's transformation is merely the translation of a metaphor in its literal sense; but in his behaviour during the * Black's translation, revised ed. (London, 1846), p. 393.

tender homage of the Fairy Queen, we have an amusing proof how much the consciousness of such a head-dress heightens the effect of his usual folly. Theseus and Hippolyta are, as it were, a splendid frame for the picture; they take no part in the action, but surround it with a stately pomp. The discourse of the hero and his Amazon, as they course through the forest with their noisy hunting-train, works upon the imagination like the fresh breath of morning, before which the shades of night disappear.

Pyramus and Thisbe is not unmeaningly chosen as the grotesque play within the play: it is exactly, like the pathetic part of the piece, a secret meeting of two lovers in the forest, and their separation by an unfortunate accident, and closes the whole with the most amusing parody.

[From Hazlitt's "Characters of Shakespeare's Plays."*]

Puck, or Robin Goodfellow, is the leader of the fairy band. He is the Ariel of the Midsummer-Night's Dream; and yet as unlike as can be to the Ariel in The Tempest. No other poet could have made two such different characters out of the same fanciful materials and situations. Ariel is a minister of retribution, who is touched with the sense of pity at the woes he inflicts. Puck is a madcap sprite, full of wantonness and mischief, who laughs at those he misleads— "Lord, what fools these mortals be!" Ariel cleaves the air, and executes his mission with the zeal of a winged messenger; Puck is borne along on his fairy errand like the light and glittering gossamer before the breeze. He is indeed a most epicurean little gentleman, dealing in quaint devices, and faring in dainty delights. Prospero and his world of spirits are a set of moralists; but with Oberon and his fairies we are launched at once into the empire of the butterflies. How beautifully is this race of beings contrasted with the * Characters of Shakespeare's Plays, by William Hazlitt, edited by W. Carew Hazlitt (London, 1869), p. 91 fol.

men and women actors in the scene, by a single epithet which Titania gives to the latter-" the human mortals!" It is astonishing that Shakespeare should be considered, not only by foreigners, but by many of our own critics, as a gloomy and heavy writer, who painted nothing but "gorgons and hydras, and chimeras dire." His subtlety exceeds that of all other dramatic writers, insomuch that a celebrated person of the present day said that he regarded him rather as a metaphysician than a poet. In the Midsummer-Night's Dream alone, we should imagine, there is more sweetness and beauty of description than in the whole range of French poetry put together. What we mean is this, that we will produce out of that single play ten passages to which we do not think any ten passages in the works of the French poets can be opposed displaying equal fancy and imagery. Shall we mention the remonstrance of Helena to Hermia, or Titania's description of her fairy train, or her disputes with Oberon about the Indian boy, or Puck's account of himself and his employments, or the Fairy Queen's exhortation to the elves to pay due attendance upon her favourite, Bottom; or Hippolyta's description of a chase, or Theseus' answer? The two last are as heroical and spirited as the others are full of luscious tenderness. The reading of the play is like wandering in a grove by moonlight; the descriptions breathe a sweetness like odours thrown from beds of flowers.

[From Verplanck's Introduction to the Play.*]

This is, in several respects, the most remarkable composition of its author, and has probably contributed more to his general fame, as it has given a more peculiar evidence of the variety and brilliancy of his genius, than any other of his dramas. Not that it is in itself the noblest of his works,

* The Illustrated Shakespeare, edited by G. C. Verplanck (New York, 1847), vol. ii. p. 5 of M. N. D.

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